Phase behavior of the ternary system
Figure 1 shows the ternary diagram of octane/n -propanol/water at
room temperature, in which the component content is expressed as the
mass fraction. It is clearly seen that there are two regions in the
ternary diagram, i.e. , multiphase region and single-phase
(microemulsion region). For the multiphase region, the ternary system is
turbid liquid under stirring, and it transforms to two phases quickly
after standing by for a few minutes.
But, further addition ofn -propanol makes this multiphase region shifting to single-phase,
and the ternary system becomes optically isotropic and transparent,
which are typical properties of microemulsion. So constructed diagram
demonstrates clearly that the immiscible two phases of octane and water
can become a stably homogeneous system in the presence ofn -propanol with a suitable amount, by contrast, this similar
phenomenon was shown in the previous study as well.28Interestingly, the continuous area of the single-phase region in this
ternary system accounts for about 22% of the total phase diagram and
the single-phase channel extends from oil-rich to water-rich region,
hence, it is thought that this novel SFME system is suitable to examine
the influence of the microemulsion structure transition on the
depolymerization process.20